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11/22/14

PS: Best of the 253 so far? There have been some wonderful goals, all angles, blistering free kicks, dribbles past defenders on the edge of the box, the classic Messi cut-in-from-byline-then-blooter, the close skills and precise finish after a pinpoint pass from Iniesta. Oh yes there are so many great goals from this guy.

But still, you're joking right? You seriously need to ask that? Just saying "Barcelona vs Getafe 2007" still brings any footy fan out in goosebumps.

Mickeyman over at The World Complex has an interesting post up on gold, the dollar, the mining companies and what he sees in his charts (which, as ever, are very different from the standard fare you get from the dumb end of the TA worshipper brigade). You should read this one, as it's more than a little optimistic about the near term future.Click here, find out.

11/21/14

I have this thing about Mahler Five, because 25 years ago I was invited to a Halle Orchestra (Manchester UK) recital of it, sat through it and hated it to the point where I was nearly falling asleep (not helped by having a too-small orchestra in a too big concert hall, but seriously it was sloppy and boring). Many many moons later, in another country, I walked in on this very recording below and loved it without even recognizing the piece until I asked what that killer music was on the stereo.

It was one of those doubletake moments, Wile E Coyote running off the cliff without yet realizing he's about to fall. My host then laid into Too. Much. Information. on Mahler than I could handle (this Gustav dude rouses passions and has serious hardcore fans), but today I have better recall about what she said about Leonard Bernstein and why he conducted Mahler so well. That Bernstein, Mahler and the Vienna crew all highly prized technique, but Bernstein also got the landscape-sized sweep of the Mahler symphonies. It's art and craft here, literally.

As the longer classical Friday OT segments have been going down better than the 4 minute rock segments recently (by post hits and by feedback), it's time to get Mahlering round these parts. No better way to open the series than this, as my knowledge of Mahler isn't deep but it's been my fave of his for a decade and so you get to hear it too.

PS: The famous Mahler 5 adagietto starts at minute 44:20. Don't go straight there, but when it comes...ahhh.

Gary Tanashian says the Gold/Silver ratio "may be setting up favorably". It's a post that feeds my own pet gripe about the way chartists use modal verbs to cover their backs (would really prefer a nice clear neck-on-line call instead of "may be"), but that's just me and my neuroses on show. As usual Gary gives us TA that's a cut above the normal crud, well worth readingand right here on this link.

UPDATE: With silver up 2% and gold up 1%, Gary's thoughts are looking smart this morning.

The next time you boast that your CEO and CFO take 50% less than their peer group in salary, remember that the peer group that you people chose has an average market cap over 50% higher than Sandstorm. And hey, we didn't choose them for you.

News from Peru is that the suit between Bear Creek Mining (BCM.v) and the government of Peru has been definitively closed. The thing to note however, is that it was the lawyers representing BCM.v, headed by Elsiario Antúnez de Nayolo Ramis, who made the decision to drop the case, not the judge nor the State.

A friendly deal done? You-scratch-my-back event that ties in the fate of Corani? BCM realized it wasn't getting anywhere and dropped it clean? The market needs news on this from the company as soon as possible, as this is as material an event as you can get.

11/20/14

First posted in February 2014, a repeat of the best thing ever to appear on this blog. Do yourself a favour and scroll down slowly, give yourself a few seconds on each of the images before moving to the next one.

Have you been following this one? IKN Nerve Centre most certainly has, so coming up you get the Meson Capital Partner side, the the Aberdeen (AAB.to) side, and finally the most important bit by far when IKN gives its considered verdict on the shenanignans.

Highly Dilutive Transaction to Insiders to Finance Investment in Undisclosed Related Party Not in Best Interests of the Company or Shareholders

TORONTO , Nov. 18, 2014 /CNW/ - Meson Capital Partners LLC who, together with certain of its affiliates ("Meson"), collectively represent one of the largest common shareholdings of Aberdeen International (AAB.TO) ("Aberdeen" or the "Company") with current ownership of approximately 9% of Aberdeen's outstanding common shares today announced that it sent a letter to the President and CEO and the Board of Directors of Aberdeen as well as the TSX in response to pending transactions.

Meson believes that recently proposed transactions, which include a highly dilutive private placement to insiders and a transaction with an undisclosed related party, African Thunder Platinum Ltd., are not in the best interests of the Company or its shareholders and demands they be ceased immediately on their currently proposed terms.

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Nov 20, 2014) - Aberdeen International Inc. (AAB.TO)("Aberdeen" or the "Company") today responds to the material inaccuracies and false allegations in the public letter disseminated by Meson Capital Partners LLC ("Meson Capital") on November 18, 2014. In particular: (continues here)

And again, go see the three main reasons listed at that link, as well as the catty sign-off paragraph.

AND NOW THE BIG ONE: IT'S THE IKN VERDICT

This one's easy, folks. Aberdeen is in the right, Meson is in the wrong and the reasoning is simplicity itself: Any company stupid enough to buy and voluntarity own for an extended period of time around 9% of any company run by Stan Bharti, let alone the centrepiece company of his sordid, scam-laden empire must be run by very, but very fucking stupid people. That's you, Meson. You are very extremely magnificently fucking stupid people and deserve everything coming your way, good and hard. The end.

Readers should by now be crystal clear on the position taken by your author as regards Continental Gold (CNL.to) and its PEA announced a couple of days ago, what with the post "The Continental Gold (CNL.to) PEA: Be afraid, be very afraid" being the most hit upon piece here at this humble corner of cyberspace this week.

To that end, I'd like to share with you the chunk of prose that came in Scotia Daily Mining Scoop daily mailer that reported on the analysis report published by Mike Hocking on CNL.to, a stock he covers.

The PEA has outlined an initial throughput of 2,000 tpd increasing to 3,500 tpd, a fairly large underground gold mine utilizing long-hole stoping methods. Given the narrow width of the veins, Mike had assumed a much more limited 750 tpd, increasing to 2,000 tpd over a 3 year period, largely requiring cut and fill methods. It appears CNL used a subset of their resource at a higher COG before dilution to calculate the resourced used in the PEA (and Mike expects that a significant portion of these tonnes are classified as inferred); thus, the company assumed higher dilution than Mike’s estimates (58% vs. 30%) but diluted processing grade was in-line. Even after the release of the PEA on Monday, Mike’s primary concern remains dilution and throughput. The PEA has outlined a very large mine on mineralization hosted largely in narrow veins.

Ok, that done, a comment or three. I'm aware that IKN lays into brokerage anal ysts with merry glee on occasion, I'm also aware that Ovais Habib of the same Scotia office has no qualms about ripping off this blog and then claiming the work he uses as his own without any sort of hat-tip. But credit where due, people like Hocking don't have the blog-like luxury of direct unfiltered communication with their client base and need to get reports through compliance and lawyers offices and suchlike. To see that sort of commentary on a stock that gets its target pulled down at the same time should be a clear hint to any Scotia client holding CNL stock to get the anal yst on the phone and talk directly...like yesterday. Hocking's done well here, has picked up on concrete concerns about this fast'n'loose operation at Buritica, he deserves praise for doing his job right.

We noted back in October howBad Crooke Brad Cooke, President and CEO of Endeavour Silver, had dumped 190,000 shares (just after exercising 200k in cheap options) mere days before his company posted pisspoor 3q14 results.

Well, as noted by a couple of eagle-eyed readers (thanks guys, you know who you are) the latest instalment is that he'sbought back 60k at much cheaper prices:

Which begs the obvious question: Hey Brad, as CEO of a lossmaking mining company don't you think you might have other things to do that are slightly more pressing than fucking around with inside-info driven fliptrades?

If you've been wondering just why this company has performed so badly with Cooke at the helm, wonder no longer.

11/19/14

When I stuck it on the blog a couple of days ago I thought we'd get perhaps a hundred responses tops over the period (what with the way the majority normally ignore these things, your author included) so I'm calling out an impressive 200+ votes here this fine and sunny Wednesday afternoon, just three days in. Thank you. Here's how things are to now:

Gold's winning because no matter how you might deny it, you're all a bunch of raving goldbug lunatics. Apple's 2nd because you're all too tight to buy good machinery and settle for the $100 generic Android phone. Bitcoin's losing because that kind of nerd doesn't hang round these parts.

Thusly and therefore a cordial invitation to vote is sent out to those who haven't bothered to date; hey we could make it to 300 yet* before I close the poll in a few days' time (yeah it'll close before December 31st, I didn't think we'd get a reasonable sample this quickly and it's not going to clutter up the place that long). And a reminder for those who read IKN via RSS or daily digest mailer (most of you these days), you need to come over to the blog to play, hit the link here.

The final section of IKN288 last Sunday evening looked at B2Gold (BTG) (BTO.to) and its 3q14 financials filed a couple of days before. Here we are Wednesday morning and even with today's slight correction, it's still 14.8% up on the weekend's price. Here's how it was, pasted from the PDF, typos and all:

And now there's only one, because the financing I've been expecting has arrived. It's a $1.17 flowthru bought deal for 12.9m shares to raise $15m and pretty decent timing by the management team, so credit given for that. It'll almost certainly fill, but as it's a bot deal LSG cares less than TD sec on that. As for the other reason, I'm keeping that one a secret. Let us see how things progress.

Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. to Pursue Exit Options for its Eastern Canadian Operations

CLEVELAND, Nov. 19, 2014 /CNW/ -- Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLF) announced today that it is pursuing exit options for its Eastern Canadian iron ore operations which may result in the closure of the Bloom Lake mine.

Lourenco Goncalves, Cliffs' Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer said, "Despite the continued interest of the prospective equity partners in Bloom Lake and in its high quality ore, the potential investment is not achievable within a time frame acceptable to Cliffs. With expansion no longer viable, we have shifted our focus to executing an exit option for Eastern Canadian operations that minimizes the cash outflows and associated liabilities."

The Company previously disclosed that to make Bloom Lake viable, the development of the mine's Phase 2 was necessary. The investment was estimated to cost $1.2 billion. In the event of a closure, the estimated closure costs are expected to be in the range of $650 million to $700 million in the next five years.

Cliffs stated also that the Company's subsidiary, Cliffs Quebec Iron Mining Limited, along with Bloom Lake General Partner Limited and The Bloom Lake Iron Ore Limited Partnership, recently lost an arbitration claim they filed against a former Bloom Lake customer relating to the August 2011 termination of an iron ore sales agreement. In November 2014, the arbitrators decided in favor of the former customer and awarded it damages in an amount of approximately$71 million as well as attorneys' fees and accrued interest from the date of termination of the offtake agreement inAugust 2011. Cliffs Quebec Iron Mining Limited is currently reviewing the award to determine appropriate next steps.

We get the Fed minutes for the last meeting at 2pm today. Last time they came (October 8th) they caused a kerfuffle in dollar trading and therefore just about everything else. So this time you'll want to pay attention as well, but the thing is the Fed minutes tend to be loooong and it's not so easy to get the market moving juice from them as it is the brief FOMC statement.

President Fisher dissented because he believed that the continued strengthening of the real economy, the improved outlook for labor utilization and for general price stability, and continued signs of financial market excess will likely warrant an earlier reduction in monetary accommodation than is suggested by the Committee's stated forward guidance.

Mr. Plosser dissented because he objected to the statement's guidance indicating that it likely will be appropriate to maintain the current target range for the federal funds rate for "a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends." In his view, the reference to calendar time should be replaced with language that indicates how monetary policy will respond to incoming data. Moreover, he judged that the statement did not acknowledge the substantial progress that had been made toward the Committee's economic goals and thus risks unnecessary and disruptive volatility in financial markets, and perhaps in the economy, if the Committee reduces accommodation sooner or more quickly than financial markets anticipate.

For a while back there moly had us thinking the worst days were over, what with the pop to $15/lb or so. But no, it dropped back to the $10 level quickly enough. Anyway, this CotD is used as an excuse to point you to the words of Cochilco's Jorge Cantallopts* (crazy name, crazy guy: i don't know what llopts are but he's singing about them all right) on Chile's moly market in 2015, in which he expects Chile to produce 16% more of the stuff compared to this year and the price to average $12/lb next year, compared to the average of ~$11.50 in this.

*In fact a variant of the slightly more common surname Cantallops, it's an old family name from a region in Spain and one of the traditional ruling class names of Chile, which was probably started by one of the landed families sending a jerkoff 4th son to run an encomienda in the 17th century. Also a sure sign of inbreeding and baldness by 35 years of age on the male lineage.

An IKN-favoured blog for many moons, Junior Gold Miner Seeker today links to a 13 minute radio interview with Brent Cook that goes under the title, "2015, Year of Peak Gold".Hit that link and find out for yourself.

And while we're here, happy birthday to Brent Cook who turned 60 earlier this week.

IKN yet again puts in front of its esteemed readership the only chart you need to remember when reading or listening to the opinions of the good for nothing bunch of market parasites and charlatans known to the world as junior mining newsletter writers:

Last night we got the overdue PEA (linked here)and sure enough, our concerns were 100% justified as although the shysters at CNL were careful not to spell it out (not going to draw attention to their very own elephant in their very own drawing room now, are they?) CNL did indeed confirm that they plan to take this badly understood, skinny vein system deposit straight to production on the back of a PEA (scoping study) without bothering to run a pre-feas or feas study. We know this because:

They have 2.8m oz under M+I resource, all the rest is inferred.

They aim to get M+I to 3.5m oz in 2015 (see very latest corp lit on website for that)

The mine plan and its economics is based on mining 4.4m oz gold over 18 years.

Therefore CNL wants to build and go into operation on the back of inferred ounces

As inferred ounces are disqualified from any pre-feas or feas study (you can only play with them in the initial-stage PEA type study) the inference is crystal clear

Though not an exact carbon copy, this is the same type of stunt the very same team tried to pull over at Serra Pelada with Colossus Minerals and you, dear and kind reader, would be mad, mad and thrice mad to fall for this bullshit. Without the backing of a pre-feas minimum or feas preferred, these jokers aren't going to get any money from bankers or any love from any major miner worth its salt on the buyout stakes, that's not an opinion but a cast-iron fact. Avoid this CNL thing like the plague, it's run by people who have already proven themselves to be utterly untrustworthy who are just repeating the same pump and dump modus operandi of before.

UPDATE: Reader PB writes in with:

Hey Otto, don't go beating about the bush, tell us what you really feel about CNL!

And just for once I'm going to take that expression literally so here we go, PB. If you invest in Continental Gold based on last night's PEA and the promotion that will come as a result from company, brokerages with vested interests and paid-for pusher people...

1) You are represented by the dog in this amusing cartoon GIF
2) The reality of the stock market is represented by Foghorn Leghorn

Those were the days, weren't they? Back when everyone told us Ben Bernanke's ZIRP and QE (was it one, two, three?) and helicopter and fiat looming world death and horrible things were about to consume us all. Here's a friendly map of the time, screenshot from this interactive page entitled "Inflation Riots And Protests 2011"(where you get to mouse over and find our what each event was on the map...it's fun in Yemen and fuel blockades in the UK).

Yup, those happy days when we complained about the price of hydrocarbons and wheat. Let them eat petrolcake.

UPDATE: Ok, ok, I'm being facetious in the above, but there is a point here (somewhere). Back in 2011 we had lotsa lotsa OhMyGodWeAllGonnaDie from the reactive fringes, but we also had serious people working at serious bodies such as The IMF saying that 10% rise in food prices = 100% rises in social disturbances. on a worldwide scale. So what changed? The food didn't, the oil didn't, the availability of commodities in general may have moved inside normal supply variations but it's not going to swing wildly in just three years.

The answer must be the affordability of things, which should be something you'd do well to keep in mind the next time you're bored to death at a party by a hard money advocate.

...for their well-deserved perfomance bonus options awards, all 2,439,974 of them, as received by the happy crew yesterday.

Thanks to the sturdy guidance of the top team at SAND and the excellent executive decisions made, such as the heavy investments in Colossus and the extra top-up purchase of Luna Gold at over $1 in the very recent past, SAND has managed to put in a price performance worthy of such an illustrious team.

We look forward to the next SAND top-up investment in equities of Metanor, sure to be coming soon. Keep up the good work, guys! Enjoy those options now y'all. Data fromhere

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Nov 18, 2014) - Alderon Iron Ore Corp. (ADV.TO)(NYSE MKT:AXX)("Alderon" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company received the 2014 Developer of the Year Award ("Award") from the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") Newfoundland Branch. The Award is in recognition for significant progress in advancing a mine toward production; or for a significant contribution to health and safety, environmental stewardship or commitment to community; or for innovation in the Newfoundland and Labrador mining industry.

"We're honoured to have received this Award in recognition of our hard work the past year," says Tayfun Eldem, President & CEO of Alderon. "For our peers to acknowledge the dedication of our entire team carries special significance for Alderon and I'd like to thank the CIM for recognizing our accomplishments with this Award." continues here

Exhibit Two: A price chart:

11/17/14

VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - November 17, 2014) - Luna Gold Corp.(LGC.TO)(LGC.TO)(LGCUF)("Luna" or the "Company")today announced that Geoff Chater has notified the Company that he will be stepping down as President and Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") and a director of Luna for personal reasons effective no later than January 31, 2015. Mr. Chater will continue in his role to provide an orderly transition of responsibilities to a new CEO. The Company has begun an active search for a new CEO.

"We would like to thank Geoff for his contributions during his tenure at Luna Gold both as a director and an officer. We wish him all the best in his future endeavours," commented Steven Krause, Chairman of Luna.

About Luna Gold Corp.

Oh looky, I've just checked over at Bigcharts for my own personal reasons. It appears that during his tenure as CEO, February 2013 to date, Chater had personal reason to oversee a 90% drop in the share price of LGC.to.

For personal reasons, your humble scribe has slight difficulty in believing the official reasons for Mr Chater's departure. But hey, it's nothing personal. They're just reasons.

Under the terms of the transaction, which is structured as a Plan of Arrangement, each Virginia share will be exchanged for 0.92 Osisko shares (the "Arrangement Consideration"). The Arrangement Consideration represents consideration to Virginia shareholders of C$14.19 per Virginia share based on the closing price of Osisko common shares of C$15.42 per share on the Toronto Stock Exchange as at November 14, 2014. This value implies a 41% premium to the closing price of Virginia shares on November 14, 2014, and a 27% premium to Virginia based on both companies' 30-day VWAPs ending November 14, 2014.

Upon completion of the combination, existing Osisko and Virginia shareholders will own approximately 61% and 39% of the combined company pro forma the concurrent private placements by la Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec ("CDPQ") and le Fonds de solidarite FTQ (the "Fonds"), respectively, on a basic basis.

Pierre, you watching? There's something new to buy that isn't Sandstorm, Pierre.

UPDATE: So far this morning (and there are still two hours to go before the opening bell), Osisko has announced 1) the all-paper buyout of Virginia 2) the start of a new dividend policy and 3) a share buyback. Betcha the anal ysts that cover this one are glad they have computers these days.

11/16/14

Right here, entitled "Why I am not (just) a technician", that goes into more detail about the way Cam Hui approaches his investments and goes about picking positions to the market. Nice and meaty, plenty of food for thought. Recommended Sunday evening reading. Or Monday, if you like.

The thing I do is try to recognize my own failings, of which I have many. I don't see them all, some are easier to keep in focus, others show up in glimpses every so often, surely others still get missed completely. With that in place I try not to pass on those failings to the two small human beings under my charge. The hope is that somewhere down the line those two small humans will be large humans, be a little less screwed up than me, and be able to filter out a few more of the negatives as they look after their own small humans.

A personal side benefit is that along the way, every so often, I notice that the act of trying to stop infecting the two small human beings with the negative things has helped me stop manifesting them as well. But that's a minor thing, as my true objective is to make humans a better species and stop future generations from self-destructing. Because without humans on the planet, the world truly would be a better place. And we humans don't want that.

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